


A ReVOLving MATTer

by Starrie_Wolf



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Hacker!Matt, Holt Family, Sassy Matt Holt, Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, The flight to Kerberos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 07:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15287028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starrie_Wolf/pseuds/Starrie_Wolf
Summary: You can’t receive personal messages on deep space missions, says Garrison guidelines.Well, the way Matt sees it, what the Garrison doesn’t know won’t hurt it.





	A ReVOLving MATTer

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to the mods of RevHOLT, who gave me the opportunity to work on this wonderful project! I've wanted to do something regarding Pidge and Matt's relationship, as well as their code, ever since I first saw it during -- and I'm glad to finally have the chance to do something about it.
> 
> All proceeds from the zine have been donated to OTW (AO3). As a long-time patron and frequent user of AO3 myself, I'm very happy to be able to participate in a project that directly gives back to what's arguably my most-used site after Google :P

“Atmospheric scatter, electromagnetic interference, solar radiation.” Matt ticks them off his fingers, adjusting one last knob on the impromptu signal-amplifying rig. Twisting around, he checks the clock in the corner of the system tray of his console, mentally converting on-board time to Garrison time. “T minus ten minutes to _showtime_.”

On his console’s minimap display, the dot labelled ‘Dad’ moves into the conference room.

Matt grins and cracks his knuckles, dropping into his chair to get a better view of the whole ship.

According to the map, Shiro’s still in the cockpit. By his previous calculations, he should remain there for the next one hundred and forty-two minutes, give or take sixteen.

Perfect.

At precisely the prearranged time, his screen pings with an incoming call from the Garrison. It’s immediately rerouted to the conference room console, of course, but that’s not what Matt’s after. He bends over the keyboard, hands flying over the keys as he sought to – aha.

“Found you,” he croons, teasing apart the _second_ incoming signal. It’s hiding in the shadow of the Garrison call, using a cloned signature to masquerade itself, but Matt’s not the best communications officer in the Galaxy Garrison for no reason.

Now, to transfer _that_ call to his own console…

The screen buzzes with static, fuzzy at the edges, and then finally resolves into a video feed.

“ _Yes_!” he whoops, and then slaps a hand over his mouth, glancing around furtively. “Oops.”

“Matt? Earth to Matthew?”

Matt rolls his eyes at the pun. “Hey, Pidge,” he greets, grinning so widely his cheeks hurt, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

Katie wrinkles her nose at the nickname, the way she always does when he calls her that. “Hey, big brother.”

“How’s it going back on Planet Dirt?”

“Dirty,” shoots back Katie instantly. “And really boring. I want to be up there with you and Dad _already_.”

“And you _will_ ,” Matt rejoinders, the back-and-forth a familiar enough argument that he can probably do it in his sleep. “But you need to finish middle school first before you can get into the Garrison, and you need to graduate from _that_ before you can come with us.”

“But that’s so _far away_ ,” Katie whines, with all the impatience of a fourteen-year-old.

“Patience, Pidgey,” he teases. “You’ll evolve soon.”

“Maaaaatt –” she complains, but he’s turning around, his attention no longer on her. Did he just see what he thinks –

“Stars –” he yelps, diving for the rig, and then snatching his hand away before he could do something as stupid as _touch_ what is clearly overheated metal. “Hey, look, Katie – I’m, I’m going to have to put you on hold for a bit, okay? The rig I’ve cooked up can’t take this, I’ve got to – do something…” he trails off, tentatively prodding at the corner of the frame.

It spits some ominous sparks at him.

“Oh dear,” Matt mutters to himself. That’ll be the power socket, then. It’s overloading, the way he hoped it wouldn’t. But what can he expect from parts harvested from an already worn-out array, really?

He’s going to need something with a bit more… juice.

The engine room. There’s plenty of auxiliary systems down there, and nobody ought to mind if he cannibalized one of the redundant circuits, not if he put it back together right after this call. A power booster ought to do it – those things are rechargeable, and they’ll be doing a flyby past Jupiter tomorrow; it’ll be easy enough to slip an extra piece into the pile awaiting recharge, and then put it back later.

He double-checks the two dots on his console. Still in the cockpit and the conference room, as expected.

Katie yells something – probably uncomplimentary, honestly, but Matt’s already tuned her out, darting out of his room.

* * *

“What are you doing?”

Matt does _not_ shriek like a little girl.

(He’ll wipe the video feeds later.)

“Uh… _hey_ , Shiro,” he tries weakly. “Fancy meeting you, uh, here.”

Shiro’s brows crease in an adorable little frown. “Uh… hi?”

He looks down, at where Matt’s still stupidly clutching the power booster in one hand, and Shiro might not be an engineer but he’s certainly not an idiot. “Is that one of the spare power cells?” The frown deepens, a fraction. “Matt, what are you doing? Commander Holt already told you, you’re not allowed to remotely hack into the space station orbiting Jupiter just ‘to see if you can’.”

“Um, no? I mean, yes! Yes. _Yes_. That was totally what I wanted to do with this. Ahaha…” Matt scratches the back of his head sheepishly, and winces. Yeah, no way is Shiro going to buy _that_.

Shiro raises his eyebrows pointedly.

Matt caves.

It’s embarrassingly fast, but hey, it’s his best friend, and with how much Matt talks about Katie, he figures Shiro wouldn’t mind.

“Yeah, okay, so – you know how we can’t get any personal messages because it takes a ridiculous amount of energy to transmit a signal into deep space, and the Garrison wants to reserve that sort of expenditure for conference call updates?”

Shiro nods.

“Well, uh, Katie’s found a way to piggyback on the outgoing Garrison’s signal so that she can call us.”

“And she’s calling now?” Shiro interrupts, face lighting up.

Matt coughs. “Yeah,” he admits, and makes an extra mental note to erase this entire conversation from the security feeds later. “But the impromptu signal-amplifying rig I cooked up takes too much power, I can’t run it off the limited amount I get in my cabin alone, so I figured I could borrow one of the spare power boosters first and charge it back up during the Jupiter flyby later.”

Shiro glances down at the brick in his hands, and huffs out a laugh that Matt hopes is amused. “Holts,” he mutters, shaking his head.

Matt smiles awkwardly, and shifts the power booster to the other arm. Hacking – uh, he means, _computer security testing_ – usually doesn’t give anything but his fingers a workout.

“How did you know I’m down here, anyway?” he asks, as they start down the corridor back to the berths.

“Oh.” Shiro looks surprised. “You know, the cockpit has monitors for the whole ship? I saw the engine room door open, so I came down to make sure everything’s okay, since nobody should be near the engines right now.”

He laughs when Matt face-palms.

* * *

“Hey, Katie,” Matt says, feebly. “Look who I brought.”

Katie blinks up at the screen. In the short time he’s been away, she’s managed to acquire a dog, and Den now goes tumbling onto the floor as she scrambles to her feet. He snuffles, shaking his head, nails clicking against the floor as he too comes a-trotting at the sound of Matt’s voice.

“Did he catch you?” Katie asks, knowingly.

Sometimes, he really hates the fact that genius runs in the family.

“… yes,” he grudgingly admits.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Katie.” Shiro smiles at her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“And I, you,” she returns.

Oh no, he knows that Look.

Oh _no_ , he may have unwittingly just unleashed a disaster.

Shiro and Katie grin at each other.

“Did you hear about the time Matt was so tired, he mistook a pillar for Iverson?” Shiro asks.

He is sorry for everything he’s ever done to Shiro. Sorry for putting pink dye in his laundry last April Fool’s. Sorry for putting that snake in the bathroom right before Shiro’s shower. Sorry for hiding all his navigation notes right before the Kerberos mission qualifiers – actually, no. That one’s for Shiro’s own good; he was forgetting to eat and sleep.

A reluctant smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and Matt reaches up to touch it.

He’s glad that they’re getting along.

Even if –

“Pidge!” Matt yelps, once he tunes back into the conversation and realizes which story she’s now sharing. That’s _not_ something he wants Shiro to know!

“But _Matt_ ,” Shiro drawls, barely choking back his laughter. “I want to know what happened to the Roombas!”

No. No no no – he’s carrying that to his grave –

“Hit me up when you get back to Earth.” And then Katie has the audacity to _wink_.

Matt splutters, but Shiro’s already nodding. “Sure thing.”

“No way,” Matt finally finds his voice again, climbing to his feet. Shiro’s a _little_ bigger than him, but if living with a much younger sister has taught him anything, it’s that one can fight _dirty_. “Don’t you even _dare_ , Shirogane –”

“What’s going on in here?”

Matt yelps as he loses his balance, and only some quick maneuvering kept him from skidding into the careful setup he’s got.

“Uh,” Shiro says intelligently. “We were – mmmph!” He narrows his eyes at Matt, like he’s considering biting the hand Matt has over his mouth.

Sam Holt just shakes his head. “So that’s why reception from the Garrison’s so spotty today.” He pushes the door open wider, stepping into the room. “Iverson and I thought it was the electromagnetic radiation from the asteroid field, but I should’ve known better.”

Matt glances at the screen, where Katie’s adopted her best ‘who, me?’ innocent look. It doesn’t really work, with the way Den’s barking up a storm at the sight of her favorite human, and how she’s got both hands firmly buried in his scruff, trying to stop him from knocking her laptop over.

“Well,” Sam mutters, dropping onto the floor in a casual cross-legged pose. “What Iverson doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Katie, can you get Colleen for me?”


End file.
